Starvation and thirst

[Sonza]

Hi guys,

I'm running a wastelands game, version 3.5. I want to make more of a feature of needing to get adequate supplies for trips across the wastes, and I have found the starvation and thirst rules too basic for my purposes.

The rules say a character can go for 24+[Con] hours with no food / water and must then make Con checks every hour to avoid taking D6 nonlethal damage.

1. I have looked, and I cannot for the life of me find any variant that takes into account rationing. What if you drink half the amount of water per day? Should I alter the number of hours before the check is made, the DC of the checks or the damage taken?

2. By these rules, it is impossible to actually die of starvation or thirst. At what point would you make the damage lethal?

3. Heat affects the amount of water needed. What about exertion, carry load etc? If I wanted to include more factors, should I up the amount of water needed, change the number of hours before the check is made, or change the DC of the checks?

Ideally, I want to end up with some kind of table that would include more detail than the current rules but still be fairly easy to use. Can you help?

[Sonza]

Ooh - an additional problem:

What happens if you have neither food nor water? Or enough water and half the amount of food? How would you stack the effects?

[Debihuman]

Here are the details on this:


Starvation Dnd Thirst

Characters might find themselves without food or water and with no means to obtain them. In normal climates, Medium characters need at least a gallon of fluids and about a pound of decent food per day to avoid starvation. (Small characters need half as much.) In very hot climates, characters need two or three times as much water to avoid dehydration.

A character can go without water for 1 day plus a number of hours equal to his Constitution score. After this time, the character must make a Constitution check each hour (DC 10, +1 for each previous check) or take 1d6 points of nonlethal damage.

A character can go without food for 3 days, in growing discomfort. After this time, the character must make a Constitution check each day (DC 10, +1 for each previous check) or take 1d6 points of nonlethal damage.

Characters who have taken nonlethal damage from lack of food or water are fatigued. Nonlethal damage from thirst or starvation cannot be recovered until the character gets food or water, as needed—not even magic that restores hit points heals this damage.

Note that a flask of water holds one pint and a gallon of water weighs 8 pounds. How much time do you want them to spend on searching for food and/or water. Does the party have access to spells that help them (goodberry, create food and water, etc.).

How much of a hardship do you want this to be?

Debby

[kanachi]

I have run several “survival” elements in my game and to be honest I just let my players know up front that I’m chucking out the base rules and that I will be handling these issues as and when they are in the interest to the campaign.

I tend not to like having hard and fast systems to govern things like this, it’s something much better played by your gut (pun intended).

If it’s hot and the players have not specifically told me that they are carrying extra water or acting in a way to conserve their energy I may begin telling them to make fortitude saves and taking things from there in a way I deem logical. Survival skills are highly rewarded if used wisely.

In certain situations (harsh enviroments) I have taken the stance that everyone is “fatigued” at the end of an encounter for a period of 10 minutes for every 6 rounds of action. If you enter another encounter fatigued then you will end it exhausted and if you try to enter another one after that well… no ones ever done that actually.

My main advise here though is to not put the survival elements of your game above the action or story flow. It may sound cool to add these elements, but everyone gets pretty sick of hunting rabbits and finding twigs for the 20th time in a session.

[GunbladeKnight]

1. I have looked, and I cannot for the life of me find any variant that takes into account rationing. What if you drink half the amount of water per day? Should I alter the number of hours before the check is made, the DC of the checks or the damage taken?
It doesn't say how much water is needed, but I would go with a full waterskin would satisfy you for a day.


2. By these rules, it is impossible to actually die of starvation or thirst. At what point would you make the damage lethal?
Once you are unconcious, then it becomes lethal.


3. Heat affects the amount of water needed. What about exertion, carry load etc? If I wanted to include more factors, should I up the amount of water needed, change the number of hours before the check is made, or change the DC of the checks?
Maybe heavy load decreases the time they can go without water by 1/4th? It depends on how realistic you want to make it versus how easy on yourself you want to do.

As an additional note, I would look for Sandstorm if you do not have it. It is made for desert campaigns and has more in-depth rules on thirst, heat, and other hazards.

[Quellian-dyrae]

How about this? It's on the complex side, but should give decent results (though the numbers may need some tweaking).

There are various types of hardships (see spoiler below, though others may exist). Once the character suffers a hardship for a certain amount of time (called that hardship's Increment), it must make a Constitution check, with a DC based on the hardship. If it suffers the hardship for a prolonged period, it makes the check for each Increment of time suffered, and the DC increases by one per successive check.

The character may take 10 on these checks, so it doesn't have to start rolling until the DC exceeds 10 + its Constitution Modifier.

The first time the character fails any such check, it becomes Fatigued. The second time, it becomes Exhausted. The third time it becomes Staggered. If it fails four such checks, it dies. Though each hardship DC is tracked separately, they all contribute to this one track of fatigue. A character who fails a check by at least five points passes out for an amount of time equal to the hardship's Increment, though it can be revived with a Heal check at the same DC as the Constitution check.

Removing the cause of the hardship for one full Increment removes the need for checks until the hardship returns, and resets the DC back to the base for that hardship. The negative effects caused by hardships can be removed by appropriate magic, though this does nothing to reset the DC. As long as none of the character's hardship DCs are at the point where it has to actually roll its checks (so, 11 + Constitution modifier normally), the character can recover from the conditions caused by hardship with one minute of rest each (death aside, obviously).

A character who is receiving a minimal amount of relief from the hardship (such as a small amount of food or water, enough shelter to keep the worst of the elements at bay, etc) receives a +4 bonus on its Constitution checks against that hardship, and that hardship cannot kill it and cannot have a DC higher than 15. If the character fails a Constitution check against such a hardship while staggered, it passes out as if it failed by five points (which could, depending on the situation, lead to the next check being potentially deadly).

Typical Hardships:


(Note - my numbers may be wildly divorced from reality, but it's a decent starting point)

Hunger: Caused by going without food. Increment: 3 Days. DC 11.

Thirst: Caused by going without water. Increment: 12 Hours. DC 11.

Deprivation: Caused by going without sleep. Increment: 2 Days. DC 11.

Suffocation: Caused by going without air. Increment: 1 Round. DC 0. Since suffocation tends to be a more immediate form of hardship, it may be better to give it its own fatigue track, rather than having it contribute to the general one.

Exposure: Caused by being exposed to extreme temperature. Extreme weather may also count as minor exposure, while particularly harmful weather (major hailstorms, acid rain, etc) count count as major or even severe exposure.
Minor: Temperatures above 90 degrees or below 40 degrees. Increment: 1 Hour. DC 10.
Major: Temperatures above 110 degrees or below 0 degrees. Increment: 10 Minutes. DC 10.
Severe: Temperatures above 140 degrees or below -20 degrees. Increment: 1 Minute. DC 10.
Lethal: As severe, with additional factors (wet clothes for cold, smoke inhalation for heat, etc). Increment: 1 Round. DC 10.

Exertion: Caused by performing tiring activity.
Light: Carrying a light load, walking, riding, and other mundane exertion. Increment: 4 Hours. DC 10.
Medium: Carrying a medium load, jogging/hustling, hiking, swimming, climbing, light exercise, etc. Increment: 1 Hour. DC 10.
Heavy: Carrying a heavy load, moderate exercise, etc. Increment: 10 Minutes. DC 10.
Intense: Running, carrying your maximum load, physical combat, etc. Increment: 1 Minute. DC 10.

[Melayl]

I believe Sandstorm has rules for how much extra water is needed/extra hardships for hot weather.

As for rationing, I'd still have them make a check to avoid nonlethal damage from thirst/starvation, but with a bonus to it. Maybe +1 per 1/4 of the total needed for the day, possibly a bonus for food and drink separately.

[Sonza]

Thanks for your input, guys. I particularly like Quellian-dyrae's 'harship check' rules. I may go with them in another game, or if my rules don't work. I've gone with an adaptation of the current ruleset (and yes, I'd already checked Sandstorm) which extrapolates the existing mechanics to add a bit more detail.

Here's what I came up with:

Thirst

Water requirements: 1 gallon (medium), ½ gallon (small)

Increase by factor of 1 for each temperature band, and a further factor ½ for Gruelling Conditions (see below).

Time to first Con check X + [Con] hours (minimum 1 hour)

Standard: X = 24
Hot: X = 12
Severe Heat: X = 6

Conditional modifiers

None Light Medium Heavy
Carry Load +3 0 -3 -6
(½ light or less)
Exertion +3 0 -3 -6
(Mostly stationary) (Walking) (Long trek) (Forced march;
Fighting lots)

If the conditional modifiers total -12, this constitutes Gruelling Conditions.

Dehydration Check
Once the allotted time is up, the character makes a Con check every hour.

DC = 10 +[1 per previous check]

Increase the DC by 2 if Fatigued or 4 if Exhausted.

A failed check results in Dehydration. The character takes D6 nonlethal damage and becomes Fatigued. Nonlethal damage taken from Dehydration needs special treatment to heal. (See below). If a character falls unconscious, further damage from Dehydration is lethal.

Rationing
Rationing water decreases the amount of damage. Subtract the proportion of water drunk from the total damage. E.g.

½ Required water: ½ damage.
¼ Required water: ¾ damage (round to nearest)
1/3 Required water: 2/3 damage (round to nearest).

 
Starvation

Food Requirements: 1lb (Medium) 1/2lb (Small)
Increase this by a factor of ½ in Gruelling Conditions (as described above).

Time to first Con check
3 days. 2 Days in Gruelling Conditions.

Starvation checks and effects

As for Dehydration. Rationing also works in the same way. A character lacking both food and water must follow the rules for each effect separately.

[Sonza]

Ah, darn it. I tried to recreate the table of conditional modifiers by putting spaces in, but it's gone and deleted them all. But you get the idea.

Tbh, the conditional modifiers will be kinda arbitrary and at DM's discretion, but it gives the players and me a frame of reference to work from.

What d'you think?

If you like it, feel free to use it.

[Togath]

If you can find it, 2E darksun had some decent rule for this sort of thing if your looking for already made rules to take inspiration from

[Seharvepernfan]

.
Typical Hardships:


(Note - my numbers may be wildly divorced from reality, but it's a decent starting point)

Hunger: Caused by going without food. Increment: 3 Days. DC 11.

Thirst: Caused by going without water. Increment: 12 Hours. DC 11.

Deprivation: Caused by going without sleep. Increment: 2 Days. DC 11.

Suffocation: Caused by going without air. Increment: 1 Round. DC 0. Since suffocation tends to be a more immediate form of hardship, it may be better to give it its own fatigue track, rather than having it contribute to the general one.

Exposure: Caused by being exposed to extreme temperature. Extreme weather may also count as minor exposure, while particularly harmful weather (major hailstorms, acid rain, etc) count count as major or even severe exposure.
Minor: Temperatures above 90 degrees or below 40 degrees. Increment: 1 Hour. DC 10.
Major: Temperatures above 110 degrees or below 0 degrees. Increment: 10 Minutes. DC 10.
Severe: Temperatures above 140 degrees or below -20 degrees. Increment: 1 Minute. DC 10.
Lethal: As severe, with additional factors (wet clothes for cold, smoke inhalation for heat, etc). Increment: 1 Round. DC 10.

Exertion: Caused by performing tiring activity.
Light: Carrying a light load, walking, riding, and other mundane exertion. Increment: 4 Hours. DC 10.
Medium: Carrying a medium load, jogging/hustling, hiking, swimming, climbing, light exercise, etc. Increment: 1 Hour. DC 10.
Heavy: Carrying a heavy load, moderate exercise, etc. Increment: 10 Minutes. DC 10.
Intense: Running, carrying your maximum load, physical combat, etc. Increment: 1 Minute. DC 10.


These are really good!